They just mentioned the garden of fucking eden...

I would suggest that you read "Species in Denial" by Jeremy Griffith. The explanatory power of these ideas are absolutely massive... Never have I encountered something that explains so many things that were previously only mysteries... Amazing stuff!

I had a look too. I thought the premiss seemed sound, ie we have 2 thought processes: genetic, which they describe as instinctual or the soul and which was present when we were apes; and the nervous system, which they describe as an experiential learning system or intellect that arose when we evolved from being just another mammal to sentient human beings (which was triggered by the process of nurturing which I add because it will become relevant).
They state that they KNOW the truth about why the human race is troubled and confused. They state the problem of the human condition is caused by the conflict between these two thought process - ie the genetic instincts or soul conflicts with the nervous systems knowledge seeking or intellect. Sounded plausible to me so I read on.
I quickly felt like I was drowning in a sea of repetition which included repetitious quotes, but i perservered. They warned me I would become "deaf" to what I was hearing because the truth is so difficult to admit to, so I perservered.
After a while I got the sense that they were very angry about the lack of respect they were getting from establishment scientist, although they do quote supporters such as Stephen Hawking and some other guy who is a Nobel Laureate. I couldn't find any links on google between them and Mr Hawking (in their current guise WTM, or their former guise FTA), or the Nobel Laureate (can't remember his name but his year of birth is 1915, so I presumed a cultural context). This anger didn't equate with their purporting to have solved the riddle of the human condition however. After all, they apparently aren't suffering the conflict anymore because they have managed to integrate the two thought processes to find meaning.
Eventually I scanned forward and found a section which purported to explain how their theory solved the problems of the battle between the sexes. Being female I read with interest, as all the heirarchy in the movement are men.
Apparently, men are the hero's of the story because women, in their neivete and their role as nurturers (I'm gonna get nasty now) ignored the call of the nervous system to learn, prefering to obey our genetic instincts. So we were responsible for making men feel guilty and therefor bad about wanting to seek knowledge rather than obey their instincts, and this explains where the problems of the human condition started. While they say other things contributed along the way, such as race and geographical location, they state the problem is still contributed to today by women making men feel bad. They also say this is why men are less man like and society is disintegrating because of it.
I stopped reading after this. I mean, give me a break! Not until the 20th century did we start to get the same opportunities as men to test our intellect. I am damn sure we had intellect before, we just couldn't prove it - and many women in the world still can't.
So while the premiss still seems sound to me, that the human condition is explained by a conflict between what our genetic instincts are telling us to do and our desire to seek out alternative ways of being and doing, I think they've taken this plausible scientific question and bastardized it with a lot of mumbo jumbo and spurious assertions.
Ofcourse, as long as your not harming anyone, you decide for yourself....

 My gosh, this bit has the most spelling errors I've ever seen.  Plus, still don't have the patience to watch the videos and still don't have a clue what is the secret biological knowledge that will reconcile me to the existence of evil.

If someone has discovered the "meaning" of life, why the heck couldn't it be someone with good communication skills?

To Jesus, too. A mighty god you'd expect to deliver the sort of scything prose that would cut to the heart of the matter but no. Just a bunch of drivel for the most part, backed up by lake of fire hysteria.

It all comes down to loving your brother. Gee. Thanks lord. I have 2 brothers and this never, ever occurred to me before. I had planned to kill them both but now. Phew. I just don't know if it's right anymore.

As one of the aggrieved parents of a child who was 'absorbed" into this movement,originally known at the Foudation for Humanity's Adulthood-we have not seen our chiold for over 16 years now. The leader doesn't permit those with parents whodid not agree with his tracjings/doctrines snd who opposed him to stay in touich with us. He also wont allow his members t mary or have children though he doesn"t opposethem living with their girl friends. He took well educated,mainly private school kids and those with Uni degrees into his fold, and uses one of Australia's leading mountaineering Hero's as his leading disciple. So,BEWARE !

I disagree with the aggrieved parent, I believe the WTM is not a cult, but is an organisation that is full of hard working individuals who have a tremendous pride and devotion to their work. 

Just because the WTM organisations purpose is to rationally address the human condition, doesn't mean that it's a cult, especially if its basis is purely scientific. Just because your child and the founder of the organisation are passionate, hard working and completely devoted to promoting the content of an Australian bioligists synthesis, doesn't mean its a sect or cult.  

I would say that your child has choosen to devote their life to something that means something very important to them, and you as a parent could either offer your love and support to them, or you can try and control their life and oppress their freedom as individuals to pursue their own interests. What you may think is important in life (like marriage and have kids etc) doesn't mean everyone should think that. 

I've researched and studied the content of the WTM and FHA for 5 years now, and I am of a Greek Orthodox background and an engineer living in Australia. My family promoted similar family values, of marriage and children etc, and my opinion is that it is a very shallow and hollow perspective on life, if not pessimistic. Their is so much more meaning and beauty in our world that echoes so much more to our lives than simply getting married, having kids, working, paying taxes and dying. 

To my understanding, the biology behind the resolution of the human condition is very sound, and it does tackle the issue of the human condition head on, and those who are brave enough or at least innocent enough to hear the actual words, will naturally realise the importance of the issue and embrace it. 

I suggest you as a parent attempt to take a more positive interest into what your child pursues and is interested in, and resist the tendency to control their lives. You may see your relationship improve, and that you quite possibly overreacted in the first instance.  

 Check out the long history of lawsuits brought by WTM for unfair reporting and defamation and such: http://www.worldtransformation.com/History.html

I can't imagine how many suits I could've won by now if I had the money (and the time to piss away) to fight all of the slander and libel out there about me.

What the hell is this powerful new information? Does it coalesce down into a few hundred words so's we can understand what the hell WTM actually is? 

Sure, humans have biases, sure it's all subjective. But what is this massive explanatory power? Is it really just reptilian instincts vs the limbic system?

Personally I think the human experience is not large enough to make sense of reality but I'm willing to be persuaded by new data...genes vs nerves and all that.  

As for libel - this is the Internet - the unbridled thought process of the hive mind operating in real time but with an embarrassingly long term memory. 

Nevertheless, I didn't think the WTM was a cult. Maybe the poster mistook this organisation for another.  

 Good question, and to sum up the whole message of the WTM in one phrase, it would be this:

"Genes can orientate, but are ignorant of nerves need to understand."

To unpack further, humans are a "duality" of two "learning systems". Now there have been plenty of people in the past who have recognized the two elements of "instinct" and "intellect" in producing our tormented "human condition", but never before this has there ever been anyone who has explained WHY and HOW these two elements inside of us clashed.

The breakthrough information is exactly HOW these two systems are at war. In the human body, there has been forced to exist two learning systems (ways of "adapting" to the world) that are not in cooperation with each other. Therefore, we are tormented by how we are "made".

With the explanation of the HOW, for the first time in history us humans are assured of not just our inherent worth, but also of our immense heroism of having to deal with a tormented "state of being" while all the while never being able to explain it. 

I have posted on youtube the explanation that you can go directly to, and skip the intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4qis7bKTxA

And the crazy thing about all this stuff is that, once a person understands our condition, a whole world of understanding about the mysteries of life and human behaviour open up thereafter, and it's incredible. As some members of the WTM have said, an "avalanche of answers" follows this simple explanation.

As the song "Duality" by Slipknot goes: "I push my fingers into my eyes, it's the only thing that slowly stops the ache.  And it's made of all the things I have to take. It never ends, it pushes it's way inside. If the pain goes on, I'm not gonna make it". Interestingly, there's a very good reason that song is called "Duality"... I believe it is speaking of the tormenting question of good and evil, which amazingly now, is solved forever through this new advance of science (instead of religion, dogma, new age, etc). 

But anyway, I don't quote that song as if it's proof, and I recognize it's my interpretation (just to pre-empt accusations of misunderstanding), but just that in many songs (especially by heavier bands like slipknot) the truth of our "condition" often emerges. But thank God it's now understood, and we can now openly talk about it (when before we couldn't, for good reasons).

Let's see... comments by people emotionally tied to the subject at hand; people with an axe to grind (including aggrieved parent), or those cheering for their 'favorite team', people with something to lose or gain by the general reaction to the subject matter.

So basically, every fucking guest poster in this thread.

From the description, it sounds very similar to the broad shape of standard Christianity - we are flawed, deeply tormented beings, who need a new 'interpretation' or or vision of reality which will fix it all up and bring us meaning and purpose.

I personally have no ultimate problem reconciling instinct and intellect - Science, ie the outcome of continuing empirical research, is extremely helpful to me in understanding how they fit together, and have never felt 'tormented' by any such inner conflict.

I have certainly had problems, but they have been driven by external circumstances, to some extent beyond my control, not without some less than ideal choices on my part, but that is a separate set of issues.

Sounds like some unfortunate people do feel that way, and are driven to such cults. I feel sad for them.

Welcome to the forum.

That's good. I assume you don't mind if we just toss it then, and you certainly wouldn't mind discussing the claims of the WTM movement with us and why you believe them.

A cult is any group which has an excessive veneration or obsession with a particular person or system of ideas or way of doing things.

Sounds not that far off the mark here.

Watched most of those videos.

Extremely UN-impressed. Sorry.

That guy, and others who get drawn to this stuff, presumably have had a screwed-up life, 'tormented', etc. Far too influenced by the memes of religion and Platonic nonsense of 'idealism' and related crap, like his constant references to the Garden of Eden story.

I assume it works for him, but it adds absolutely nothing to my understanding. It is far too simplistic, ignores so many other ways of looking at things, doesn't appear to be aware that there are other quite different ways of understanding and coping with life, which don't involve many of the 'problems' he seems obsessed with.

I cannot identify with his 'paradoxes' and 'torment'. Of course there is conflict, but I cannot map my experience to the picture he paints.

There is no fundamental conflict between 'genes' and our 'nerves' - our reasoning ability is a genetically selected mechanism which gives us extra ways to manage our social interactions and have more flexible adaptive behaviors. In fact, the concept of 'memes' shows that intellect can be dogged by the same limitations, thought systems can get just as entrenched as genes.

The 'dichotomy' between genes and nerves is a total misinterpretation of how these things work.

The biggest core problem I see is that our society is now way too big and complex for either our intellect or instinct to cope with. Intellect and rationality are NOT necessarily capable of addressing every real-world problem.

The complexity of multiple non-linear feedback systems, which can so easily lead to chaos, are exemplified in human society, so if there is 'solution', it is unlikely to come from such simplistic reasoning and research as conveyed by this movement. They may well contribute to some improvements, but I am not holding my breath for any great ultimate answer from this approach.

The most positive slant on this 'movement' is that sure, we need to try all kinds of approaches, test them as far as possible, sure. And many of our instinctive  judgements and actions, etc, are not going to be helpful under conditions very different from those we evolved in. D'uh. Thank you Mr Obvious.

There is much research going on into the nature of our reactions and subjective judgements, etc, etc, under various circumstances, and how they can be changed by various experiences and training, all of which is very much what we need to know to give us clues as to what we can do to solve some of the problems of coping with our current circumstances, and what might be good moves to change those circumstances where possible.

Those videos did not come across to me as showing any real new insight into the real problems we confront. Seems a bit confused, with some less than accurate assumptions about 'human nature', to me.

OK not so much a cult, just a bunch of poorly thought-through, confused ideas.

I would like to regain that time I spent playing those videos waiting for some momentous ideas to emerge...

 Butterbattle said:

"So, the 'point' is a claim about semantics? The people following this movement don't seem open-minded, their view of things is very simplistic, and they think they possess some special knowledge. That's cultish enough for me to call it a cult. "

Again, this is false. To not call these people open-minded is a total reverse-of-the-truth lie. If you were to watch the videos of the different supporters, you would find out that almost all of the supporters wrestled with the information for a very long time. They didn't just "latch" onto immediately because they're "simplistic" or "close-minded". Rather, it was the OPPOSITE. They wrestled with it for a very long time (many years for most), and they support it because it withstood the test of intense scrutiny.

And "special knowledge"?? Jeez.... Can we stop with the misrepresentation now? There is no "special knowledge" about this. The information should stack up logically, and logically alone. There is no "divine revelation" or "inside track knowledge" that anyone has that all the other people of the world cannot access (for their own evaluation). 

So there you have it. It is NOT "cultish enough" for anyone to call it a cult, and this is not just about semantics. They encourage you to reject it if it doesn't stack up rationally. That is not the mark of a cult, it is the mark of a rational organization.

Unless you've watch all the testimonies of the different people and have absorbed large amounts of the info, you are NOT in a position to make a claim about their "open-mindedness".

There is a problem discussing ideas which are not so much about simple objective, observable 'facts', but about how to think about and assess ideas themselves.

You can get locked into a tight recursive loop...

Like when Christians say you have to know how to 'read' the bible, or 'believe' or accept the core idea first, then it will all make sense to you.

And I still object to the assumption that we are all in this state of deep conflict and 'torment' due to this supposed fundamental 'conflict' between genes and our nervous system-based reasoning. Even if we somehow don't realize it.

That guy is projecting his own inner confusion and sense of conflict onto everybody else as though he has had a 'revelation' as to how to address it.

Books by Douglas Hofstadter, including 'Goedel, Escher Bach' co-authored with Daniel Dennett, treat these sorts of issues with far greater subtlety and depth than what I saw, IMHO.

But of course they are not going to spawn a movement, they don't work that way, and aren't easily comprehended by people without a background in thinking deeply about thinking, based on as much relevant reading as possible, to compare and build on others ideas. That is simply not how most people's minds work.

How does one justify one viewpoint to someone with a very different one?? Not easy, if at all possible in some cases, which is why I force myself to at least look at different ideas which have at least some hooks into my 'reality'.

Sorry, didn't see or hear anything there which promised insights which might extend my current understanding, rather I heard someone fumbling around in areas I had worked through years ago.

Many times I have been accused of not 'getting it', when it seems to me I have already been where the accuser is currently, and worked through it and out the other side.

Doesn't 'prove' I am right, but I would need something more impressive than that stuff, sorry. Especially when I can identify some basic misconceptions or failures of logic, on a subject I have studied and thought about extensively.

That is what everyone says; no one ever describes themselves as being closed-minded or not thinking deeply on the issue. You're just contradicting me. 

I am judging the movement by a short skim of their website, including a couple minutes of one of their videos, a few other sources, and what other posters on rationalresponders think about it. I was not going to waste hours of my time watching potentially crappy videos, and I'm certainly not going to watch them now that Bob has verified that they are indeed extremely crappy.

If you want to drastically increase my respect for your movement, all you have to do is provide a short explanation of what this 'problem' with humans is and what their proposed 'solution' entails. It doesn't have to be very detailed; two paragraphs should be sufficient.

Well, if I've deduced your position correctly, people can certainly access this information; you believe they have simply rejected the information because they are denying their 'human condition' or whatever, right? Furthermore, the World Transformation Movement, specifically, has the solution to the problem with the 'human condition' while the scientific and philosophical community at large does not. Thus, unless someone is a brilliant philosopher (like Plato....ha) and could figure out these things on their own, it is essentially necessary to refer to the WTM for guidance. I would call that special knowledge. 

"I am judging the movement by a short skim of their website, including a couple minutes of one of their videos, a few other sources, and what other posters on rationalresponders think about it."

Ok then. So then anyone in your shoes should admit that you're in no position to have an authoritative opinion on the movement itself. And even more importantly, you're in even less of a position to label it a cult (especially when the term brings to the average mind very negative connotations and implications that are definitely not true of the WTM).

"If you want to drastically increase my respect for your movement, all you have to do is provide a short explanation of what this 'problem' with humans is and what their proposed 'solution' entails. It doesn't have to be very detailed; two paragraphs should be sufficient."

My goal in this dialogue is not to increase your respect for the WTM. My goal here is only to defend against the mindless labeling of this movement as a cult. In light of how important this info is (in my opinion, and for reasons which would take me quite a while to articulate), and in light of how the label of a cult is a reverse-of-the-truth lie, I am defending against this tendency. 

And just to be clear, I don't mean to pick on you guys in particular. The WTM has had to ward off these implications before (in light of the members total devotion and passion to the spreading of this info). Whenever someone wholeheartedly promotes a movement (of any kind), the label of a cult tends to surface (a good example would be a more recent video from the band "30 Seconds to Mars" where, in light of the enthusiasm and devotion of the fans, they anticipate that people are going to label them as a cult, and so they jokingly and pre-emptively respond by saying, "yes, this is a cult&quot. 

In many cases, defending against the label of a cult wouldn't necessarily warrant my time and energy. But the ideas of this movement are far, far too important to not do so. Indeed, the implications are world-changing (hence the name).

Apologies for the late reply, if you are still following this.

Okay, I did become interested enough to watch a video, partly because Bob said he watched six videos, and I distinctly remember there being nine videos. So, I went back to the main page to check and watched Part 8, which is titled 'The Transformation.' 

Overall, it was much better than I expected, so...alright, I won't call it a cult. But, I can't say I was impressed either. I certainly didn't find any of it to be very profound or a revelation. The only part that I thought was interesting was when the man suggested solving the problem with the human condition by passing our knowledge about the truth of the human condition on to the next generation, but not our conflicted emotions or whatever. 

Why all the rhetoric and suspense?

That's predominant in your posts, and all over that site. Too much woo woo language, and opinions. I'm not interested in arguments from authority.

Not all of us are laymen in psychology. Just give me the facts. Where's the data? What's the methodology?

Selling the 'sizzle', and not the 'steak'...lol

I took a look at his book, and apparently he has to warn you that this 'beef' is so powerful that your defenses will not want to swallow it at first!

Then I watched the 6th video. "Men and Women Explained"

Oh crap it's funny...lol

Too much stuff to list, but it's official; they guy is a nutter.

This is definitely 'fringe' thinking.

 Hey guys, I'm just gonna finish up this conversation by saying that all the ideas of the WTM are freely available on their site. 

This stuff is very confronting of us humans (even though it's compassionate and liberating), and so it's not an easy process to digest all of it.

But again, all the info is public and available, and it should be embraced if it makes sense of your world, and it should be rejected if it doesn't. There is no "cult" or "private knowledge", everything is open and available.

And of course, like anything, the responsible thing to do is to understand the material before you make a judgement on it (particularly making public judgements). What I have been trying to work against in this thread, is our tendency as humans to label things without fully understanding them. We all have that tendency (including myself), and so we need to work against that. 

I think that's just basic decency for any movement, and for any new ideas (the WTM and anything else). All the best.

Thanks, butterbattle, for posting that, very helpful in giving us some context for this 'movement'.

It really does seem to have become a dogma, a claim which cannot be questioned, which is very sad.

The other thought that occurs to me they must have some heavy and proactive security to have prevented any real hint of this 'challenging and confronting' knowledge from leaking out, since I have heard or seen nothing in those videos or in any other sources that would deserve that sort of description.

I now think of the Masons and their secret handshakes and knowledge, or the Church of Scientology who also claim and jealously protect their inner secrets, and want to sue anyone who leaks them.

I suppose it is just their concern for the stunning emotional impact of their 'truth' on an unprepared subject that has them keeping it 'under wraps' for the general public, until they have gone through this long and tedious conditioning or preparation, watching all those videos, reading whatever books they supply, whatever, before we can unveil The Secret of Life...

So, rotimus, you are part of that security detail. your role to try and stop people 'bad-mouthing' the movement?

hey, thx for summing this up from a womens perspective.  I too thought the religious 'contexts' and the position of women as enablers of men's dysfunctional mental conflicts was a little over the top.  Not that they portrtay themselves as a religion, just they dance too politely around religions.  for sure there is a problem between women and men, but whatever they are they are multiplied by 1,000 x's by religious influence.  In the end, it is all about power and money, feeling insecure,  and having a bigger pile of rocks than the other person.